Could you tell us a bit more about yourself and your current role My name is Sarah Stephenson-Hunter and I’ve been at the University of Nottingham since September 2009. I work as a Disability Adviser, part of the Accessibility Team in Specialist Services. Throughout my time at the University I’ve always had a keen interest …

Background – how I got here I trained as an English teacher and taught abroad for several years before coming back to the UK and moving intoA-level and GCSE English teaching. Then I moved to West Wales and discovered that you can only really teach English if you can speak Welsh. I decided to train …

Over the summer I attended a University wide Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Away Day at UP so thought I would share some of what was covered and my thoughts going forward. Professor Marion Walker was standing down as Associate PVC for EDI. Marion has been very positive about moving the University forward in relation …

The STEM Pipeline is a term that is used to described the progression of women through the educational system in science, technology, engineering and mathematics and their subsequent progression to senior academic posts. The metaphor of a leaky pipeline is used to describe the drop out of women from this progression, which ultimately leads to …

What was your career pathway leading to your current role? My early career – between completing my PhD (1997) and having my first academic job (Lecturer at University of Birmingham in 2004) – was not conventional. After my PhD, I didn’t do a PostDoc, but got a job in R&D in a large pharmaceutical company …

A few weeks ago, I was delighted to announce that the School of Biosciences had been awarded an Athena SWAN Silver award. This is a recognition of our efforts to address gender inequality in our workplace since 2014. Biosciences has been an Athena SWAN award holder continuously since 2007, having oscillated between Bronze and Silver …

For those who don’t know me, I am now 7 months into life as a teaching academic for Biotechnology, having made the switch from postdoc life, and can often be found in office C08 of BABs building. Having been inspired by others in the school to speak openly about our “whole” lives and to highlight …

In February 2015, a few days after my son’s 14thbirthday, my brain broke. I lay on the couch sobbing. Tears falling but for no reason that I could understand. My GP gave me a diagnosis of depression. I didn’t believe him, I wasn’t sad, I was numb. I felt nothing. I couldn’t string a sentence …

In the latest of our profiles of career pathways of colleagues in the School of Biosciences, Dr Christie Siettou, Assistant Professor in Agriculture, speaks about her academic development and the challenges that she has hurdled on her way to her role in the School. What was your career pathway leading to your current …

The analogy of a leaky pipeline is often used when discussing the loss of highly talented women from the Higher Education environment. In virtually every science, technology and mathematics department in the UK the story is always the same, with the proportion of women at each level in the academic hierarchy getting progressively smaller. The …

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About this blog

The School of Biosciences has set itself the challenge to be an outstanding place to work. Encapsulated in this vision is a commitment to provide a supportive environment that values equality of opportunity for all. This blog will give an overview of the work that we are doing to promote Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in the School.